COMBINED PCs BEAT 2nd FASTEST SUPERCOMPUTER

Washington: Legions of personal computers (PCs), engaged in a project to map the Milky Way, beat the world's second fastest supercomputer in sheer performance.

At this very moment, tens of thousands of PCs worldwide are quietly working together to solve the largest and most basic mysteries of our galaxy.

Enthusiastic volunteers from Africa to Australia are donating the computing power of everything from decade-old desktops to sleek new netbooks to help computer scientists and astronomers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute map our Milky Way.

Now, just this month, the collected computing power of these humble home computers has surpassed one petaflop, a computing speed that surpasses the world's second fastest supercomputer.

Since the project began, more than 45,000 individual users from 169 countries have donated computational power to the effort. Currently, approximately 17,000 users are active in the system.

The project, MilkyWay@Home, uses the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) platform, which is widely known for the SETI@home project, used to search for signs of extraterrestrial life.

Today, MilkyWay@Home has outgrown even this famous project, in terms of speed, making it the fastest computing project on the BOINC platform and perhaps the second fastest public distributed computing programme ever in operation (just behind Folding@home).

The interdisciplinary team behind MilkyWay@Home, which ranges from professors to undergraduates, began the formal development under the BOINC platform in July 2006 and worked tirelessly to build a volunteer base from the ground up to build its computational power.

Each user participating in the project signs up their computer and offers up a percentage of the machine's operating power that will be dedicated to calculations related to the project.

For the MilkyWay@Home project, this means that each personal computer is using data gathered about a very small section of the galaxy to map its shape, density, and movement.

In particular, computers donating processing power to MilkyWay@Home are looking at how the different dwarf galaxies that make up the larger Milky Way galaxy, have been moved and stretched following their merger with the larger galaxy millions of years ago.

This is done by studying each dwarf's stellar stream. Their calculations are providing new details on the overall shape and density of dark matter in the Milky Way galaxy, which is widely unknown.

The galactic computing project had very humble beginnings, according to Heidi Newberg, associate professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy at Rensselaer.

Her personal research to map the 3-D distribution of stars and matter in the Milky Way using data from the extensive Sloan Digital Sky Survey could not find the best model to map even a small section of a single galactic star stream in any reasonable amount of time.

"I was a researcher sitting in my office with a very big computational problem to solve and very little personal computational power or time at my fingertips," Newberg said.

"Working with the MilkyWay@Home platform, I now have the opportunity to use a massive computational resource that I simply could not have as a single faculty researcher, working on a single research problem."

Before taking the research to BOINC, Newberg worked with Malik Magdon-Ismail, associate professor of computer science, to create a stronger and faster algorithm for her project, says a Rensselaer Polytechnic release.

Together they greatly increased the computational efficiency and set the groundwork for what would become the much larger MilkyWay@Home project.

500 MILLION WI-FI ENABLED HANDSETS TO SHIP IN 2014

Austin: The ubiquity of both Wi-Fi technology and advanced mobile phones are ushering in a new age for people who want a high-performance multimedia experience at their fingertips. Carriers, handset makers, and end users are embracing Wi-Fi on the handset for its coverage benefits, bandwidth boost, and wide availability. New data from ABI Research indicates that out of approximately 580 million Wi-Fi devices shipped in 2009, 141 million were handsets.

The momentum of Wi-Fi enabled handsets reflects the recognition of the rigorous Wi-Fi CERTIFIED testing program from the Wi-Fi Alliance. Wi-Fi handset certification volume grew 142 percent in 2009 from 2008 levels. To date, more than 500 different handset models are now Wi-Fi CERTIFIED, giving consumers more choices than ever before.

"The phenomenal growth of handsets offering Wi-Fi is no surprise. Carriers and manufacturers have come to know Wi-Fi as a reliable, high-performance technology that's been independently validated in our renowned certification program. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED program helps ensure a seamless user experience when using Wi-Fi-enabled mobile phones," said Edgar Figueroa, CEO of the Wi-Fi Alliance.

ABI Research expects this growth trend to continue, forecasting that half a billion Wi-Fi enabled handsets will ship in 2014, with 90 percent of smartphones incorporating Wi-Fi. "In the age of data-centric multimedia phones, carriers have embraced Wi-Fi technology as a way to offload traffic from licensed spectrum and improve the consumer experience. We are seeing handset users starting to demand Wi-Fi because of its higher data rate and indoor reception benefits," said Michael Morgan, Industry Analyst, ABI Research.

The next major technology advancement for handsets is on the horizon -- advanced Wi-Fi CERTIFIED n technology is beginning to appear in mobile phones, offering consumers increased coverage. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED n program incorporates a broad range of performance features required to meet market needs in a wide range of applications.

The first ten Wi-Fi CERTIFIED n handsets have been announced, and given the benefits of this next-generation Wi-Fi technology compared to older generations, the migration toward 802.11n is expected to continue. ABI Research predicts that by 2012, 802.11n will be the predominant Wi-Fi technology in handsets.

Initial handset implementations of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED n technology will offer consumers greater effective ranges and improved coverage. Since data transmissions are more efficient with Wi-Fi CERTIFIED n, there is a lower impact to battery life compared to older forms of Wi-Fi technology. Enterprise IT managers will appreciate that Wi-Fi CERTIFIED n networks have greater capacity than legacy networks, allowing more users to be supported on a single network node.

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED n devices also incorporate WMM (Wi-Fi Multimedia) Quality of Service. WMM prioritizes network resources for voice and video applications to improve the performance of real-time applications. All Wi-Fi CERTIFIED devices are also tested to ensure that they support advanced WPA2 security capabilities.

Recognizing the need for handsets to be aligned with Wi-Fi industry standards for interoperability, security, easy installation, and reliability, the Wi-Fi Alliance began including mobile phones in its Wi-Fi CERTIFIED program in 2003.

THE GREEN ARMY'S SOCIAL NETWORK MARCH

When it comes to high-profile green coverage, though, Deanna Duke of The Crunchy Chicken has perhaps the broadest reach. Her "Freeze Yer Buns Off Challenge," encouraging people to turn down their thermostats for the winter, garnered press this year in The New York Times and USA Today, among many other outlets. She's a sustainability force to be reckoned with as she publishes clips on YouTube about shopping at farmers markets and posts to Facebook about the health implications of toothpaste with fluoride.

Is anybody besides the tree-huggers listening? You bet they are. Duke gets e-mails every day from the manufacturers of products, she told TechNewsWorld, and those companies are eager to reach the growing market of consumers seeking green approaches to even the most mundane aspects of their everyday lives.

To Review or Not to Review

"Companies are definitely targeting bloggers to spread the word about their products, particularly if they can get a review," Duke said. While she will indeed review products sent to her if she thinks the topic is relevant to her readers, it may not necessarily be a positive appraisal. "My readers expects my honest assessment about a product," she stressed. Interestingly, she's observed that more often than not, the products she publishes the best reviews about are ones she's found on her own.

Still, as green bloggers have moved from daily or weekly blog posts to more frequent, shorter updates through tools such as Twitter, the companies seeking to garner their much-coveted approval have done the same. "There definitely is a push for companies who do provide review copies or giveaways through blogs to require that as part of your entry you have to Facebook or Tweet about the product," Duke explained. "I don't support those types of giveaways as it seems somehow predatory."

Walking the Line

In fact, sustainability activists and companies are doing a delicate dance as they learn more about the benefits and pitfalls of using social networking to advocate for their cause -- which is, in the case of corporations, the bottom line. One community garden organizer thought long and hard about where the boundaries might be as she set up a group on a local food social networking site in Cleveland, Ohio.

"I had to decide whether or not to retain authority to approve group members or posts," Samantha Provencio, coordinator of two community gardens in the Cleveland area, told TechNewsWorld. The gardens are associated with a range of government and state organizations, such as The Ohio State University. However, no one group has the gardens entirely under its purview.

With no official online home for her group members, Provencio decided to use Local Food Cleveland, a site built with social networking platform Ning, to provide space for community gardeners in her own and surrounding counties. In the end, said Provencio, she left membership open, and one big aspect of that decision is the possibility that corporations will indeed come bearing gifts. "If Home Depot (NYSE: HD) wants to offer garden tools to local community gardeners, I want them to have a way to reach us," she said.

It's Not Easy Being Facebook

With Facebook's rapid rise in popularity among activists of all stripes, one obvious question is why the site isn't the de facto standard gathering place for all sustainability communities. For Provencio, the issue was one of usability. "Facebook has changed its format so often recently," she noted, "I was concerned that people would have a hard time using it." Recent changes in the site's terms of service also gave her cause for concern, she added.

For some groups, though, Facebook's enormous reach simply is too important to ignore when time and resources are very tight. Such is the case for a grass-roots citizen action group that came together quickly when the 144-acre Oakwood Country Club and golf course, which sits on the border of two eastern suburbs of Cleveland, went up for sale. Within just a couple of weeks, the group's Facebook page had tallied over 1,000 fans, steering committee member Wendy Donkin told TechNewsWorld. For some time, the page was used simply to gather ideas and build a network around the goal of keeping the acreage as green space rather than let it fall into the hands of a commercial developer.

Right now, the fate of the Oakwood land remains up in the air. However, Donkin thinks that the Facebook group will be crucial as a specific action plan comes into focus. "Once we have a series of concrete steps, we can ask all these people to help," she noted. What they have done already is to ask fans of the group's Facebook page to fill in a form that lists the skills and resources they have that might be useful as the movement gathers steam.

Who's Your Buddy?

A question both activists and corporations will have to tackle is when to use which social networking tool to achieve any given goal. In Deanna Duke's case, targeting her blog's readership has become easier over her three years of publication. "I know my audience fairly well and have a good feel for what they want to read about," she said. "I've learned from feedback over the years what is popular based on page hits or number of comments."

What's harder, explained Duke, is deciding what portions of content she wants to publish via Twitter or Facebook. Like all sustainability advocates, Duke has a life outside her activism as well, and she connects with those people via the same social networking tools she uses in her "green" life. "I have a lot more personal friends and colleagues that follow me on Facebook but don't necessarily read my blog posts," she noted. "Those that follow me on Facebook get the whole shebang -- links to my blog posts, plus personal and other environmentally related links and thoughts I have that I don't want to write a whole post about."

What those friends and colleagues will see if they browse Duke's recent Facebook status updates would interest any public relations person responsible for the online presence of a major corporation: kudos to the makers of LEGOs for making sure its toys are free of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a link to a buying guide for dog toys also made without PVC, and a re-post of a link originally distributed by organic dairy product maker Organic Valley about the dangers of overuse of antibiotics in industrial livestock operations.

BROWN PLEDGES SUPER-FAST BROADBAND FOR ALL BY 2020

In a speech, Gordon Brown called super-fast broadband "the electricity of the digital age" which "must be for all - not just for some".

The Conservatives say they have made a similar pledge and have attacked a £6-a-year landline levy planned by Labour.

The PM also promised to create a single website bringing together all government and public sector services.

The "mygov" portal will allow people to manage pensions and benefits, pay council tax, apply for school places and jobs, and book doctor's appointments - all online.

He said it would end the "one size fits all" style of public services and would help the British government become "the most efficient, open and responsive" in the world.

Web institute

In his speech, Mr Brown argued that faster broadband speeds would allow for cheaper and better public services as well as ushering in more sophisticated entertainment options and making trade easier.

But leaving this to the market alone would lead to coverage "determined not by need or by social justice, but by profitability" and "a lasting, pervasive and damaging new digital divide".

Instead, he said it was up to government to create a fair digital future, adding: "The alternative is our vision: ensuring, not simply hoping for, universal coverage."

Mr Brown said greater use of the internet would also allow people to have more say over government policy, such as through e-petitions, and could result in big cost savings by making public services more efficient.

The PM also said Labour planned £30m of funding for a new Institute of Web Science, to be based in Britain and jointly headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web.

This, he said, would carry out pioneering research, in collaboration with universities and the private sector, to develop the next generation of the web.

Jim Knight, the minister responsible for digital inclusion, said the government had to intervene to ensure super-fast broadband reached remote areas of the country.

He told BBC Radio 5 live: "You offer incentives to the market to get to those areas that otherwise they're not going to be able to make a profit out of going to.

"By having universal access to this very high bandwidth which allows more streaming video, allows people to watch TV and listen to radio online, it means that we can also release the business and employment potential of this.

'Technology manifesto'

"If you just leave it up to the market it'll only go to into the cities, it won't get out into rural Cornwall for example without some form of public subsidy."

The government is planning a 50p-a-month levy on landlines to help ensure that rural areas do not miss out on a fast network.

The Conservatives have attacked the tax, saying they will force BT to open up its network to competition, and if necessary use cash from the BBC licence fee to fill in gaps in the fast broadband network.

In their "technology manifesto", the Tories have pledged to give Britain the fastest high-speed broadband network in Europe if they win the general election.

They have also pledged to put more government services online and to publish huge swathes of government data and contracts - and make Britain a world leader in the digital revolution.

Digital campaigners the Open Rights group said Mr Brown's plans were incompatible with provisions in the Digital Economy Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, to cut off persistent illegal file-sharers.

Executive director Jim Killock said: "Online government is a great idea, but Labour cannot say people will depend on online government, and simultaneously plan to disconnect families after allegations of minor copyright offences."

MICROSOFT WINNING FANS EARLY WITH INTERNET EXPLORER 9 PREVIEW

Earlier this week Microsoft unveiled a preview of the engine behind its next-generation Web browser, Internet Explorer (IE) 9. Microsoft is still diligently working to convince many customers to make the switch from the archaic IE6 to the current IE8, but the march of development never stops so Microsoft is already hard at work on the next version as well.

post on the IEBlog "The Internet Explorer Platform Preview is a light-weight frame around the core IE platform which includes the rendering and layout, object model, parsing, and script engines. It's a way to try out the platform, and the experience improvements we're making to performance, standards support and interoperability, enabling "the same markup" to work."

Saint Clair clarified "We will update [the Platform Preview] approximately every 8 weeks on the road to Beta. Each update will provide a more complete look at the IE9 platform. The Platform Preview along with these updates and the reporting tools are designed to speed up the feedback loop between developers and the IE platform."

In other words, this is not a beta release of the IE9 browser. In fact, it's not even an alpha release. Microsoft is still (very) early in the development stage for Internet Explorer 9, but it is actively seeking to engage the Web developer community to test out the core functionality and provide feedback. It is also working to silence critics of IE and begin to build up some excitement and buzz around the eventual launch of the next-generation browser.

Toward that end, the IE9 Platform Preview seems to be quite successful thus far. Internet Explorer 8 is a fairly slick, and rather capable Web browser in its own right. My PCWorld peer Jared Newman notes "IE8 got creative with accelerators and Web slices. It also caught up with the competition on features like drag-and-drop tabs and private browsing."

Two areas where Microsoft has had consistent issues are compliance with Web standards, and speed. On the compliance front, Jennifer Yu, another Internet Explorer program manager at Microsoft, explained in a separate IEBlog post "As part of our commitment to standards and interoperability, we are excited to provide initial support for the W3C's Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 (Second Edition) Specification in the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview."

As for speed, there are some initial reports that IE9 isn't just faster than IE8, but mind-numbingly so--depending on the tasks it is being asked to perform. Tests performed by one site report preliminary results that "IE9 tech preview performs 7.8 times better than IE8."

The post detailing the results of the preliminary IE9 tests goes on to add "Betanews estimates that the IE9 chassis on Windows 7 offers 9.32 times better raw computational performance than IE8 on Windows 7, on the same machine."

Not too shabby--especially compared with recent Web browser speed tests conducted by PCWorld. Those tests showed Chrome leading the race, with Firefox 3.5 in second, and IE8 coming in third. Granted, we're talking about milliseconds difference between page loading times, but those milliseconds add up.

I asked Microsoft for an ETA on a public beta of IE9, or even an estimated target for releasing the next generation Web browser. A Microsoft spokesperson replied with the predictably standard non-answer "We're excited to provide developers with access to updated builds of the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview every eight weeks leading up to beta. Internet Explorer 9's public availability will be dependent on when it reaches the quality bar for release."

Suffice it to say that the early speed tests, combined with Microsoft's efforts at cooperating to incorporate Web standards, and its commitment to engaging the developer community early and often all bode well for the next incarnation of Internet Explorer--whenever it finally arrives.

GOOGLE HATCHES PLOT TO BRING INTO TV

Google, Intel, Sony and Logitech have reportedly come together to create a new device platform built for bringing the Web closer to the TV. Google TV would apparently use the Android OS to streamline the act of surfing Web content, including Web-based videos as well as social networking sites, through the television.
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) and Sony (NYSE: SNE) have teamed up to develop a platform called "Google TV" that will bring about a new way to surf the Internet via televisions, according to The New York Times.

Logitech (Nasdaq: LOGI), which makes remote controls and computer devices, will reportedly develop peripherals for the platform. These will apparently include a remote with a tiny keyboard.

This follows earlier reports in The Wall Street Journal that Google is testing a TV program search function with Dish Network.

If the reports are correct, the Google platform could further open up online advertising opportunities and bring in more revenue.


The New Google Platform

This new platform is reportedly based on Android, Google's operating system that's so far appeared mostly in smartphones. It will run on Intel's Atom chip, and it's believed Sony will bring out the first devices running the platform.

It's possible the platform will use Google's Chrome browser, which may have to be modified in order to work in an Android environment.

The partners in the project reportedly want to make it easier for television watchers to navigate Web applications such as social networks, as well as streamline the act of getting programming such as Web TV shows and videos from YouTube onto users' television sets.

"A lot of large companies are trying to conquer your living room," Itzik Cohen, CEO of ClipSync, told TechNewsWorld. "There will be more Web-enabled devices connected to your TV in the future." ClipSync's software platform lets people interact with each other while watching television

Google declined to discuss the issue. "We don't comment on rumor or speculation," spokesperson Eitan Bencuya told TechNewsWorld.

That's Entertainment

The consumer electronics industry, which has been bringing out network-enabled devices for the living room over the past several years, is likely to benefit from Google's platform, said Greg Ireland, a research manager at IDC.

"The industry has been looking for something like this platform," Ireland pointed out. "We have a proliferation of network-enabled devices such as connected televisions, connected Blu-ray players and the like, and there isn't a common software platform for these devices, so companies are forced to develop their own software programs," he told TechNewsWorld. "The issue is not just to connect up to Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX), but to create a platform that can link your TV to your smartphone and your Blu-ray player, for example."

Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) Widgets can tie together various media devices. Several television makers built Yahoo Widgets in their TV lines in the past couple of years, but it has had limited success. "Initially some people signed up with Yahoo Widgets," Ireland said. "Now, we've heard Samsung has moved away from Yahoo and will do something on its own. Panasonic is also coming up with something on its own."

Google's Set Top Box

Earlier this month, Google reportedly began a beta trial of TV search with Dish Network. This uses a set-top box running Android that can search through TV network programming as well as Web videos. Apparently, only a handful of Google employees are involved in the trial.

Dish Network wouldn't discuss the issue. "We don't have a comment on this," spokesperson Robin Zimmermann told TechNewsWorld.

In launching the set-top box trials, Google may aim to support its common platform. "It's not so much that Google's looking to create a box of its own as it is to offer a connected device that's part of the broader developer ecosystem," Ireland pointed out.

Once a common platform is created, it can be monetized because it will provide a set of standards developers can work to.

"You can integrate Pandora and Netflix and Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), but how can you innovate unless there's a common platform developers can work on?" Ireland said. "That's where Google comes in."

Google could deliver a toolkit to appdevs in the next couple of months; products based on the platform will be out around summer.

"Having the Google platform will increase the market for everyone," ClipSync's Cohen said. "And if Google's involved, ads will become part of the mix, which means everyone will be able to monetize."

MICROSOFT CHOICE SCREEN BOOSTS OPERA BROWSER

Web browser Opera says that downloads of its software have doubled since Microsoft introduced browser choice to Windows users on 1 March.

Microsoft now offers customers a choice of 12 browsers rather than installing its own Internet Explorer browser as a default.

A screen offering users the chance to switch browser is rolling out across Europe as part of a Windows update.

Opera says that in Poland 77% of downloads have come from the screen.

The number of copies downloaded in Poland were up by 328% on normal levels in the three days Opera analysed, between 12 and 14 March.

The screen has also made a big impact on Opera downloads in Spain, Italy and Denmark where downloads have doubled and over 60% of traffic is coming from the screen.

"This confirms that when users are given a real choice on how they choose the browser, they will try out alternatives," said Hakon Wium Lie of Opera Software.

While the Norway-based company has focused on the European market, according to StatCounter GlobalStats in March 2010 Opera was the biggest browser in Russia with a market share of 32.76%, beating Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

Microsoft agreed to offer users browser choice in Europe as part of a settlement following a 10 year dispute with the European Commission over competition regulation.